My friends came again for two weeks of holiday. I had unfortunately no time to join them during the first week of their stay as I organised big seminar aimed on fish migration and fish passes in Prague, but during second week we were fishing together Warm Vltava close to Soumarsky bridge. I came to hotel in Volary at ten o’clock, we were waiting at coffee till the end of rain and next we moved to river. Morning was difficult as fish did not take nymphs, but we caught something, I shoved to Grant different nymphing techniques, how to cast to bank for coarse fish or brownie and also combination of nymph and dry fly on French leader. For lunch we had as usually great crisp sandwiches (my friends always start day by visiting of supermarket , and at about 2pm fish started to rise and we caught nice graylings on dry. I made in the morning for my friends few light gray CDC olives size 18 and they were excellent, but some fish were choosy and I had to try different patterns, olive fly size 20 was the best for these fish. I showed to my friends also “magic rubber”  Great day, thanks, good luck in Grayling festival and see you next year.

 I had solid cold turkey after 6 weeks of making of “home points”, working on new projects in my regular work and on preparation of the world and without fishing. I met Jirka during the week and we decided to explore a for us non-known stretch of Vltava river just above the Lipno lake. Jirka picked me up at home, on the way we bought coffee at petrol station in Český Krumlov and we headed to cottage of Honza Vender located at the upper end of Lipno lake. Honza could not go with us as he had to work at cottage, but he was so kind and took us to river as parking is prohibited in the territory of the National Park.
Weather was fantastic, birds were already singing, I saw kingfisher, met wild boars family and we got some nice fish. We finished at about 4 p.m. and Honza picked us up about 3 km downstream from the place, when he had left us. After we changed our fishing clothes, we spend one hour talking at fireplace, Honza served original Hungarian sausages from his friend who is Hungarian champion in making of sausages and Pilsner beer.
Honza started his fishing life there with his father 30 years ago, his cottage is full of old trophies, pictures and memories. Now he also comes with his sons in every free day. What a nice day!!!

I need some repair of one rod and I took it to Pavel Kneifel last Sunday and we connected my visit with fishing in Vltava 27. It was cold and rainy whole day, but it was not bad, I caught about 25 fish, half of them were 2 years old graylings, hope they will survive winter, next May they could have over 30 cm. Three rainbows followed me home  I saw few rising fish and I was not lazy and replaced nymphs by dry. It was probably nice end of the season, today was whole day frost and it is not for my old bones.

I´m a little ill so I found some time to sort out photos and to make reports from my recent fishing trips.
My friends Kevin and Grant from England came again for one week holiday after workshop. They stayed in Penzion Romantik in Rožmberk. On Monday Morning I was helping with stocking of fish to Vltava river before Hanák Open Competition and we met at about lunch time. I took them a little downstream from Rožmberk and we really enjoyed fishing of grayling, brown trout, rainbow and coarse fish during nice warm sunny afternoon, it was so warm that Kevin decided to a little swim As Vltava river was a little busy before competition, mainly foreign teams took it seriously this year and came in advance to practice,  we went to Malše River for whole day on Tuesday. We parked at an abandoned scout camp at the bank of the river and started fishing from cars upstream. Fishing was fantastic but not easy as the water was low and crystal clear. We started with nymphs and most fish were concentrated in deeper parts, but they stayed also in riffles and shallows. Great was again pool under footbridge, however the bridge was washed away by flood in May. In one place, there were rising graylings in relatively calm stretch and it was impossible to catch them on nymph. So I changed reel, prepare dry fly with 5 metres  long tapered leader with tippet from 0,9 mm Hanák Competition Fluorocarbon and put one grey emerger size 20 to the point.  Fish were rising about 10 metres upstream. I get down on knees and after some foiled casts I presented fly about 1 meter above the first fish. I saw fish moving to side, watching the and returning back. I tried another fish with same effect, so I changed pattern ….. after I tried 5 patterns and caught only few squirrels I selected one palmer from Lukáš Pazderník size 20 with orange tag, which is always my choice for hopeless situations. After the fly touched down on surface above one fish, I could see, that fish at first became to be little nervous and next started forward and grabbed the fly. I got another three same graylings and lost one, sometimes proper pattern is important and proper imitation of real insect is not the right choice. It was nice practice for oncoming competitions.
For lunch we returned back to cars and my friends surprised me by great picnic, I tested sandwich with crisps for the first time in my life
After lunch we went about 2 km downstream on the path, Grant was amassed by numerous mushrooms growing everywhere on the way back to car I picked up pockets in my vest full of them. At five I had to go home and next day to work and my friends continued to Warm Vltava for the rest of the week.
I cooked at home a Czech speciality from mushrooms – put butter and sliced alien on pan, after few minutes add sliced mushrooms (the best is mixture of different species) and fry it for few minutes, next add a little water, salt and pinch of cumin and cover plate and stew it for about 20 minutes, next add eggs and scramble everything, serve with bread and tomato salad.

I was invited by Rene Coops, Milan Čubík and Luboš Roza to help Dutch team during preparation camp before European fly-fishing championship in Slovakia. René was the manager of the Dutch team composed mainly by good lake fishermen and he asked us to explain something about river fishing. I agreed as I know Rene, he goes to Hanák open every year, I looked forward to spend some time with friends Milan and Luboš and I wanted to see rivers in Slovakia, which I had visited during my studies at least ten times for hiking in beautiful mountains.
The Tuesday journey to Milans house in Bojkovice, where was meeting point, was nothing special as a torrential rain was moving east together with me. We had great dinner and with glass of great wine in hands we solved problems of fly-fishing world till 2 a.m. Rain arrived at about 2:30. In the morning we headed to Slovakia accompanied by the rain through Hends shop in Hranice na Moravě and River-land shop in Žilina. In the afternoon we reached Tvrdošín and we bought fishing permits. It was nice that fishery manager Mr. Motyčka invited us home and his lovely wife hosted us by coffee and Slivovice while he was  preparing the permits. Next we moved to Hotel Osobitá and we decided not to fish but rest and tie some flies. We met our friend Stan Mankov from Bulgaria who attended EUCH as the individual.

In the morning we went to fish Orava river in Tvrdošín, interesting bigger river with potential to produce big fish, full of coarse fish, grayling and  brown trout, occasionally rainbow and huchen. Water was a little green as it flows from big dam. We caught a lot of fish, both on nymphs and dries and I snapped a fish which did not gave ma any millimetre of line and I had no chance to stop its run under tree. For lunch we went to local restaurant and I had great lamb steak. In the evening started rise of big white may flies (I guess Origoneurila same like in Vltava 24) which lifted from bottom trouts and I caught some nice fish and I saw one fish over 50 cm jumping for may flies,  but it did not take my flies. In the evening Team Spain and Milan Čubík joined us, so we welcomed them with glass of beer. I forget my camera in hotel, so here are only few pictures from my phone.

In the evening we tied again some flies and in the morning we went to Váh river. Nice crystal-clear water full of grayling size about 30 cm. They were rising since morning and I caught more then 50 fish on dry fly, the biggest grayling had 37 cm. Also our Dutch friends improved their river fishing and they caught fish, I demonstrated upstream fishing with long leader and it was very successful. The key was light olive CDC fly size 18 and 0,10 mm tipped. After bowling tournament we shoved to our friends tying of easy and effective dry flies and explained also construction of leaders. In the evening arrived team Ireland, so we had to welcome them with beer in hand.

Third day we returned to Orava river, we were again invited for coffee to Mr. Motyčka before he prepared permits,  thanks again, water was a little lower and we were fishing dries from morning, we also tried nymphs, but it was more difficult, high pressure caused by practising teams was visible. Luboš caught a monster, we did not recognised whether it was lake trout, salmon or huchen. In the afternoon I had to move home as our workshop started on Sunday, the journey home took 6 hours.
What to say in the end, hotel was great, 30 Euro per HB is great price and food was delicious, nice rivers, kind people, nice mountain scenery, it is really worth to visit.  I hope that I will return to Slovakia soon. 

 

 

We had to cancel our spring course due to the terrible flood which affected whole republic and mainly the middle and northern parts, 15 people was killed and the damage is estimated at billion EURO…

Three attendants could not cancel their fights, so I asked Martin Musil and we decided to take care about them and to try to find a fishable river, at least to accompany them in pub  I was checking websites with flow in rivers and with meteorological radars almost every hour and I had idea to go to Moravia, the eastern part of our country, which was not affected by rain so heavily, I ordered fishing permits and hotel, but on Thursday June 6th came another storm which raised water also in Moravian rivers, there were no floods, but rivers were unfishable. I had something to do in Vimperk on Thursday morning, so by the way home I visited Warm Vltava and it looked hopefully, water was high but it was already in the river bed and it was clear, downstream from Lenora was to high. Another expected storm missed South Bohemia, so we decided to go to Warm Vltava,  I booked Penzion Lenora and on Friday 7th evening I picked Hendrik Eslin from South Africa and Kai from Finland up at the Prague Airport.

The journey was relatively quick  and on the way we were checking Otava and Volyňka rivers, which were unfortunately unfishable. We arrived Lenora and accommodated in Penzion which is owned by mother of one of my fishing buddy Honza Witner and after few beers and few stories about South African crocodiles and hypo we fall to beds. After great breakfast we headed to the river close to Horní Vltavice, river was higher, but clear, we can say in ideal condition, and fish were hungry. I explained to Hendrik our system of nymphing and almost on the first cast I caught couple of brownies. Fish were concentrated only in some places, mainly on the edges and surprisingly not in the deeper parts and in pools. I can say, that it was nice day, we had great roasted dug with dumplings and cabbage for lunch and I vpersonally caught about fifty fish including few graylings of about 35 cm. Bets fly was red-tag on the jig hook with tungsten gold bead (Kai commented on it that after 1000 years of development of fly-patterns I discovered red-tag . My friends were also satisfied and we were lucky that few storms missed us by a whisker, however it was raining in the upper part of the catchment area an the water started rising and getting muddy at about six o´clock, so we decided to go to dinner.

In the morning was water higher, but still fishable and it was going down, so I found a little less steep part of the river. My friends adapted to fishing relatively quickly, fish were still active and some of them were even rising in the afternoon (Kai caught all of them on fluo-green Czech nymph size 6 …) , Kai got nice grayling and Hendrik caught roach, bleak, dace, and also nice brown trout.

Martin Musil with his son Martin jr. joined our group on Sunday afternoon and they brought the last member of our small team Hamid from Canada. At about six started pouring rain which raised river and it was unfishable for next two days, so guys visited Karels´ shop and Hanak shop. I had to go home to look after kids and to work and Martin took over our guests, he brought his fly-tying suitcase, so mainly the evenings were nourishing. The weather were relatively good since Tuesday and on Wednesday was river again fishable and they discovered the upper part of the fishery, in which is flow reduced by the channel to power-plant. I joined the group on Thursday afternoon, fishing was nice, we found the last not-fished parts of the river, lower parts were still to high, flow from Lipno to Vltava in Vyšší Brod was 130 m3/s …

On Friday morning we returned back to the stretch where we were starting our fishing week and it was nice to compare location of fish, we caught few nice browns, hope that Hendrik will send me the picture of the king of the Warm Vltava.

On Friday afternoon we visited small inflow of Volyňka river called Spúlka, the brook is full of small brownies and it was another nice experience for our students. Kai had to leave on Friday afternoon for a competition in Finland.

I checked flows in rivers on Friday afternoon and I found out, that flow from Lipno was reduced to 40 m3/s, which meant, that flow in Vltava 29 – Devil streams was reduced to usual flow of 2 m3/s and we decided to show to our friends this beautiful stretch of river and also the Lesanka Pub in Vyšší Brod. We warmed up in the lower more wide and more easy stretch and after the great lunch in Lesanka pub we wended to upper and more wild stretch. It was nice end of the week, fishing was not easy due to a lot of sticks in the water, but we really enjoyed it.

It is a pity that we had to cancel the course, it is fact, that although we were very lucky on the weather (after one week of temperatures over 35 °C it has been again raining for 5 days and there are another floods nowadays) , the fishable stretch was to small for 25 people and one week, but I´m sure that Autumn will be nice when we have no summer.

Everything changed during last few days. I has been very busy, I´m finishing few projects in my job, I was finishing also preparation for our June course, some time took preparation of the October course for UK group, and I started preparation for WFFCH 2014, I preliminary booked hotel and we prepared preliminary programme and budged. The weather has been very bad, so I was out for fishing only few times, I visited Vltava 29, Vltava 28 (I met Jaromír Šram practising for elimination to Czech team) and I had great afternoon at Vltava 24 trophy, I caught one nice afternoon and get 14 rainbows in size 0,5 – 2 kg in 1,5 hours, mostly on nymphs but some of them on dries, I finished at six and more over I managed in-line skating along the Vltava river with my wife during sunset, what a romance !!! .

We also continued in our programme aimed on the reintroduction of grayling to Vltava river, we stocked 20 000 YOY fish and also 400 older fish from hatchery and we also restocked 100 mature wild grayling from Volyňka river. My challenge is to have there a self-reproducing  population by within ten years. We will see.

Last Thursday I was called by dispatcher from Vltava River Authority that they can not probably keep lower flow for our elimination to be held during oncoming weekend as there is expected heavy rain. They had to increase flow in Vltava river from 10 m3/s to 25-30 m3/s, which is un-fishable. … so we decided to change the schedule … but on Saturday morning was flow 60 and in the evening 100 m3/s. In České Budějovice, where the standard flow  in this part of the year is about 20 m3/s, Vltava culminated at 483 m3/s and almost whole Czech republic has been flooded in two days. It was unfortunately clear, that we had to cancel our June course. I will try to organise a substitute programme only for people who are flying from Canada, South Africa and Finland and can not change fly tickets, hopefully there would be  fishable rivers in the north-east part of the Czech republic, we will see.  Hope that next report will be more optimistic.

After almost three months of overcast sky (it was the record period of lowest sun shine in memory in Czech), we had have first few nice sunny days which promised incoming spring. I was skiing with kids during weekend and I watched the blue sky through the windows in my office and through the pictures from weekend fishing from my friends. Yesterday I decided to a little refresh my working enthusiasms and I arranged one day fishing for Wednesday. We met with Honza in Volary at 10am and we headed to the stretch of the Warm Vltava which is open for fishing all year around. The weather and nature were so nice that it would had been a great day without any catch. I also looked forward to test my new rod which I bought from one competitor, the specially extended SAGE SLT 9´00´´ for line  3, which is great for all kinds of fishing and mainly the french-nymph style.

The water was still low and clear although the afternoon temperatures has reached 10°C during last two days as in the night, there is still frost and snow in mountains is still not melting. We started fishing at about 11, I caught couple of grayling in the first pool by almost the very first cast, but beginning of fishing was slow. We were enjoying nice countryside and admired work of beavers and we were trying to localise fish.

The hatch of black stone-fly enhanced activity of fish after lunch and we found, that active fish are not in deep holes but in relatively shallow parts with slowly flowing water, usually in the end of pool above rifles. Best flies were jigs with dark body and pink or coper head, the olive one was also good. We caught over 30 fish between us, fifty fifty grayling and brown trout, I also got two small rainbows. Five graylings were in size 35+ and also few browns was over 30, so it was great day.

Journey back to the car in the warm afternoon sunbath was a little demanding as we had to go through the deep snow. We missed a few military bunkers which were built before the Second World War to face Nazis, finally not any shot was fired from the bunkers and only angling weapons can be seen here nowadays

I had only two opportunities to visit the river of my hearth this Autumn.  First day I was under Dobrá at about 1 p.m. and half hour later, after the run through the saw grass bush, I was staying in the water. Flow was low and water was clear, but cloudy and relatively cold weather promised good fishing, the only drawback was strong wind. Graylings were already rising. I always found a bigger fish, sat down and tried to catch it, if the fish did not like the fly, I changed flies until I got it. I caught about 20 nice graylings size 30 -40 cm in three hours, three of them were over 40, what a beautiful day. At about 4 p.m. fish stopped rising and it was time to go home. The best fly was olive CDC emerger size 18 and palmer with orange tag of the same size. I was fishing with rod SAGE XP size 3 and fluorocarbon tipped 0,10 mm.

On Friday two weeks later I was invited to a meeting of local fishing club in Lenora. I connected it with the fishing trip, I decided to test stretch close to Lenora to save some time, river flows here close to the road. I left car at the rail-crossing and walked about half of kilometre upstream, I was sitting on the bank at about 2 p.m. Water was low and clear, dark sky portend coming rain. Despite I noticed few olives flitting about the water, I saw no rising fish, but I made directly dry-fly set-up and tested suitable places where I expected fish. First good grayling only rolled up over the fly and I found, that it would be not easy. I went down with the diameter of the tipped to 0,08 mm and with size of fly to 20. After I used the tiny light grey CDC pattern from Karel with body made from stripped peacock quill, the very first fish sat on the hook safely. I got in the small pool 5 fish and moved slowly down. If I saw rising fish, I got it usually on the first cast, I caught also lot of no rising fish, the pattern was simply irresistible that day. After about 1,5 hour came rain and fish stopped rising, I went to car for a short break and peace of cake. I met group of English fishermen at the car and we chatted a little, they had the same experience. After the rain dropped down, I returned back to the river with nymphing set-up. I got another 20 graylings and few trouts, I used three nymphs size 16 and 0,10 mm leader, best fly was PTN with gold bead and hot-orange thorax. Fish started again to sporadically rise in the evening but I caught all of them on the nymphs, it was only necessary to a little lift the flies in front of the rising fish. Fish were not as big as close to Dobrá two weeks ago, I caught only about 5 fish over 35 cm,  but I got all year classes including YOY fish size about 10 cm, one year old fish size +-18 cm and two years old fish size +-25 cm and three years old fish size +- 30 cm.
I found out marks from beaver´s work, they were already preparing for winter and pulling willow branches to the water.

During my holiday I spent one morning at Vltava 33 above Lipno reservoir with Honza Vender, who has cottage close to river and belongs to the local specialists. Water was higher after rains and red as it flows from peat-bogs, simply conditions which are always difficult on this river. However, I remember one competition when one older fishermen  from Lenora won in similar conditions with one secret fly, unfortunately he probably took the fly to the grave. We caught some fish including nice graylings, but it was true persuasion. At about lunchtime I saw few hatching olives and also rising graylings. I caught first few smaller graylings on nymph and after I saw first rising big fish, I changed to dry fly. I got first good rising fish by the really first cast on the olive emerger and I was thinking, that I found recipe for that day. But next three same fish showed me, that I´m only a pupil. Although I tried four different flies and used fluorocarbon tippet 0,10 mm, they did not come even to see the fly I had no time to try something different as we had to go home, so I have challenge for next time. It was really great morning in the pure nature.